UN agency 'winning the struggle' to deliver food to Afghanistan

The United Nations food agency today said that despite numerous obstacles, it had succeeded in reaching a monthly food aid target of 52,000 metric tonnes - enough supplies to feed the 6 million hungry people of Afghanistan devastated by war and drought.

The announcement was made by Catherine Bertini, the Executive Director World Food Programme (WFP), who spoke at a press conference in London after briefing the House of Commons International Development Committee on WFP's mammoth humanitarian operation in Afghanistan.

"We're winning the struggle to deliver food into Afghanistan," Ms. Bertini said, noting that after weeks of major challenges in terms of insecurity and the onset of winter, the agency had "modestly" surpassed its targets for the country. Despite the intensification of hostilities, WFP plans to step-up operations in the coming days.

"The challenge for the future is to ensure that supply routes not be disrupted by any breakdown of law and order," said Ms. Bertini, warning that although WFP was reaching its food delivery target, this did not guarantee that all needy people could be fed. "Even with sufficient food stocks inside the country, it is always difficult to ensure that the most vulnerable rather than the strongest are receiving food aid," she said.

The rapid increase in the amount of food delivered over the past four weeks can be largely attributed to the increased trucking capacity, maximization of the Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan routes into Afghanistan, purchasing over 30,000 tonnes of food in the region and borrowing tens of thousands of tonnes of wheat from Pakistan. At its peak earlier this week, WFP was employing over 2,000 trucks in its food delivery operation.

With winter setting in, Ms. Bertini stressed that the agency would have to maintain its current pace of deliveries. In addition, WFP has begun special snow removal operations to keep mountainous roads open from Tajikistan to the Panjsheer Valley, as well as routes from Kyrgyzstan into Badakhshan province.